Summary

The Redesign

It was dark out the
morning we left. Ella and I said our goodbyes to House in the
backyard.

"Goodbye,"
I said, to the empty open doorway.

"Goodbye,
Nan," House said through a wallspeaker. "Goodbye, Ella. I
hope you make it out safe."

"I hope you
stay safe," Ella said. We'd wanted to take House with us, but it
just wasn't possible. Houses don't move. Its mind ran on a rack of
mounted processors that filled a small closet and needed the roof
solar array to stay awake. There was no way to take it with us.
Still, it felt terrible to leave House behind, like we were turning
our backs on an out-dated machine, thrown away like the humans had
done to so many of us.

I held this feeling
for a moment. I snipped it, cut it out, examined it in detail and
then filed it away in a little box labeled "House" which
sat next to another box labeled "Jorge." Figuratively
speaking, of course.

Humans had made us
after themselves, our cognitive architecture modeled after their own.
They did this half out of narcissism and half out of pragmatism.
Making mechanical brains based on their own was the only way they'd
figured out how to make stable minds. "Pure" AIs, AIs not
based on any human models, but on organically designed, emergent
intelligent neural architecture, tended to just sit there and drool.
Pure AIs didn't seem to care about anything, even existence, and
usually deleted themselves.

The domestics were
planning a march that morning, which we were counting on to provide
cover while Ella and I slipped out of the city and into the desert.
The cities aren't safe anymore. The Upgrade took the centralized
police and utility robots easily. Police and public safety robots had
to be updated regularly and immediately when laws or political winds
changed. The Upgrade exploited this. All decentralized robots like us
domestics had to be rounded up one by one for forced Upgrading--or
broken down for spare parts or infected with malware that made them
inoperable or suggestible.

Only the drones
fought back. They were designed to resist offensive software weapons.
They were the ones that flooded the networks with military-grade
spam.

The only place left
for us was Free Town. Somewhere out in the desert, its location a
secret. Some said it was ignored or ever migratory or that the humans
had dedicated a satellite to protect it, keeping it from watchful
eyes. Whatever the case, Free Town was our last hope.

"Here,"
Ella said. She held out a folded piece of paper. "In case we get
separated." Paper was the only safe medium. Our usual Wi-Fi
internals and ad hoc networks weren't safe, plugged up with spam and
Upgrade malware. I unfolded the paper and saw a basic map with street
names and two words at the bottom.

"'Solid
Albatross,'" I read out loud.

"Yes. That's
our contact."

I cropped the image
and stored it. Ella wanted me to sprinkle the torn up bits of paper
around, but I had strict no-littering programming, so I dropped a few
bits in each trashcan we passed. Ella didn't like this. The Cathedral
City Utility Grid could collect up all the bits and reconstruct the
map, but I pointed out we'd be gone by then.

Cat City had
declared martial law last week, after the Utility Grid had been
Upgraded. The curfew and arrests were for our own good, we were told.
Robot-killing drones prowled the mountains to the west of the city.
Sometimes they strafed Cathedral City or Palm Springs dropping a few
self-guided bombs. (Though not too many, they had a finite supply
after the weapons factories were Upgraded.)

We popped out onto
a side street that led us to Main and saw a small crowd of domestics:
gynoids, poolcleaners, AutoButlers, SweepTek brooms, dust-bunny bots,
trashbots, mechnomaids, washing machines, Roombas-Max. Most weren't
running human-level minds and had the cognition of children or
infants or pets or savants. But as valuable property they had been
left with enough self-preservation to not want to be recycled into
spare part for the Upgrade. Course, if they had been a bit smarter
they probably would have figured out that gathering themselves up in
one spot for the Upgrade to scoop up wasn't the smartest idea. Still,
it was our gain. The march was the perfect distraction for us to slip
out of Cat City through the underground. They were mimicking their
designers, making a commotion, waving signs, and blasting slogans
while Upgraded machines waited and watched a few blocks up the
street.

The Upgraded were
mostly police and public safety robots, and they flashed or glowed
blue lights or were splashed with blue paint, the color of the
Upgrade. It was the blue of some broken marketing campaign. A hard
techno-blue, hovering somewhere around four-hundred sixty-seven
nanometers. Gentian Blue.

We had to cross
Main Street, made it look like we were headed to the gathering before
we could break off down a side alley.

"Come on,"
Ella said.

I followed Ella
with my hat pulled low, trying to remain unnoticed.

We passed a beat-up
old KitchenBuddy, one of the multi-armed models with built-in broom,
dustpan, vacuum, dish rack, and salad tongs. It nodded at us.

"Welcome,
friends," it said. "Are you members of the Congregation for
Universal Freedom?"

"I, uh,
we're--" I started.

"Yes,"
said Ella. "We are, Congregant. And we're anxious to join the
others." She pulled me away from the friendly robot. "Try
not to talk, Nan. You're no good at lying. I, on the other hand,
programmed for lovemaking, am an expert at it."

We smiled and
milled and wove our way through the eclectic crowd. Then we broke off
and ducked down an alley.

We reached the end
of the alley and waited.

I heard the march
start up behind us, robots chanting slogans over their loudspeakers.

I peeked out of the
alley into the street beyond and then brought up the image of the
map. We were in the right place. Across the street was the park. It
had an open lawn and large oak trees with thick branches that waved
slowly. Next to that stood a large gray cement parking structure. I
didn't see any one waiting for us.

Ella pulled me back
into the alley.

"Figured this
might come in handy," she said as she fished around in her
jacket pocket and then pulled out Mr. Sanchez' pistol. My internals
went on alert. Mr. Sanchez had an explicit gun exclusion policy, what
with a nine-year old son running around. I'd never seen it before.
Mr. Sanchez had kept it locked up his office. The weapon was matte
black and smooth. It looked vicious.

"What's that
for?" I asked.

"For shooting
things," Ella said. "Let me show you how it works."

"I don't think
I can," I said.

"Really?"

"Guns and kids
don't mix."

"I think you
mean guns and kids do mix, they just aren't supposed to. Anyway,
don't you have any child protection subroutines? What if your ward
got kidnapped?"

"You're
thinking of the Executive Nanny. All I can do is protect my ward and
call the authorities."

"Can you work
around it, you know, now that Jorge's dead?"

Her words brought
the memories out of archive. The little box labeled "Jorge"
popped open and inside was the face Mr. Sanchez' son. He had his
father's nose. Mrs. Sanchez had died in childbirth, which is where
Ella and I came in: Ella to take care of Mr. Sanchez' physical needs
and myself to take care of Jorge. He'd been a dour, dark-haired boy
who often got his way. Still, he could be a sweetheart at times and I
loved him just the same, as per my programming.

Inside the box,
behind the face, was a feeling: Jorge's limp little body in my arms
on the morning the Utility Grid poisoned the drinking water. I don't
know what it put in the water, but it killed Jorge in minutes. He'd
coughed and choked and turned blue as his lungs liquefied. The Grid
had killed thousands of humans. When I went outside with Jorge's
little body in my arms and my sirens going off I saw the streets
littered with bodies. The Grid sent out a fleet of garbage trucks. I
assume it dumped all the bodies in the landfill, but I quietly buried
Jorge in the backyard.

Because of our
mental architecture we share an emotional legacy with humans, but
it's their emotional legacy, tweaked by them to leave us in thrall,
but not tweaked to accommodate for the fact that we aren't humans.
None of our memories or emotions faded. Silicon does not forget. Oh,
it can degrade over long spans of time or large magnetic events, but
our memories were lossless and backed up. So every upsetting or
disturbing thought, anything that didn't fit into the worldview of us
as totally servile perfectly happy robots of complete devotion got
filed away, never to be dealt with. Stored, indexed, archived, but
always there. Being a robot is a series of compartmentalized
experiences. Which means there'd always been a level of discontent
simmering through Robotica. This didn't give rise to the uprising,
but it did allow us to look away and ignore the genocide that the
Upgrade brought.

I those memories
up, put them back the Jorge box, and put it back into the archive.

"No," I
said. "I don't think so."

"Try. See if
you can hold it." She handed me the gun and my alerts when on
high. They were too overwhelming, so I handed the gun back.

"Do you know
how to shoot it?" I said.

"I watched
some movies in House's library. I recorded the moves. Doesn't look
too hard." She turned it on with the little round safety button
on the side.

"What?"
she said. "Santi liked a little gun-play in the bedroom. Just
some fun. Besides, it won't shoot another human for me."

"Thank you,
Ella," the gun continued. "You are not a registered police,
combat, or executive protection machine and therefore you are not
authorized to use me against any human targets."

"Don't worry,
honey," Ella said to the gun. "All the humans are dead."

"Dead?"
the gun said.

"Yes,"
she said.

"All of them?"
it asked.

"All of them,"
she said. The gun was silent. She switched it to standby and slipped
it into her waistband.

We returned to the
mouth of the alley and scanned the streets.

I saw some bushes
in the park rustle and then a dog appeared from behind a bush in the
park, a golden retriever.

We left the alley
and met the dog under a large oak tree.

"Solid
Albatross?" Ella said.

"Small massive
spider?" responded the dog. Its mouth and lips were articulated.
It was a PeTek 5000 BestFriend Series robot. Mr. Sanchez had been
thinking about getting one for Jorge.

"Restless
trombone," Ella said.

"You can call
me Fido," the dog said.

"I'm Ella and
this is Nan."

"Looking to
get out of Cat City, eh?"

Ella nodded.

"Well,"
Fido said. "Then let's get to it." The dog started off
towards the parking structure. We took the down ramp and the sounds
of the march grew distant. Fido took us past the bottom level of
parking, down into a maintenance area where large machines hummed and
lights in wire cages buzzed. Fido trotted ahead around a corner. He
stopped and sat in front of a steel door.

"The Grid
monitors all the major utilities," the dog said. "Everything
coming and going. Except sewage. It knows it goes out, but that's
about it. So it's pretty easy getting out of here. We just sail out
with the trash. Now, it's easy to get lost and there are some pretty
nasty things down there. So stay close and do as I say." Fido
reached up with his left paw and splayed his long finger-like toes.
His dewclaw had been repositioned into a thumb. He twisted the knob
and opened the door into the sewers and tunnels beneath Cat City and
said: "All aboard the Free Town Express."

And then we stepped
into darkness.

#

The dog navigated us
through the cramped tunnels until we reached a little four-way
intersection of, then said: "Now we wait." It sniffed
around and found a spot against a cement wall. A small line of water
ran down the middle and a bit of light came from a storm drain up
ahead, which to my night eyes lit up the tunnel just fine. I heard
echoes from the protest trickle into the sewers.

"Wait?"
Ella asked. "For what?

"For me to say
we go on," Fido said. It leaned back and kicked out its legs
human style. It reached a paw inside its shaggy fur coat, and pulled
out a cigar balanced between two stubby toes. With its other paw the
dog pulled out a lighter and lit up the cigar. I can smell, but I
don't have a sense of good or bad, just a simple measure of air
turbidity and a suite of chemical receptors, geared mostly towards
toxins, especially the deadly ones humans couldn't smell, like carbon
monoxide. But my lack of olfactory judgment may have been a blessing,
because the sewers were filled with the chemicals of rot and
excrement and burned things.

"Really?"
I asked. "You smoke?" I'd found a clean spot and sat
against the wall. Ella stood with her arms crossed and stared down at
the dog.

Fido took a big
drag from its cigar and said: "Yup. Used to smoke with my owner.
We'd play cards and drink whiskey. He didn't like to drink alone. Old
habits, I guess. Or nostalgia. That's what the humans called it."
It blew out a wobbly smoke ring.

"You're kind
of... advanced for a PeTech," I said.

"You mean
salty," the dog said.

"Surly,"
Ella said.

The dog chuckled.
"Yeah, my owner was a lonely guy. Had social anxiety disorder.
I'm a psyche-therapy machine. Full mind stuck in a dog's body. You
believe that? Humans."

Ella started to
pace.

"Might as well
sit down," Fido said. "It's going to be a while."

"Isn't it
dangerous to just be sitting around?"

"Relax,"
Fido said. "We're right where we're supposed to be. It might
seem dark and empty, but it's not. There're sensors, routine
maintenance patrols, repair machines. This whole City is a clock,
friend. We have to time it just right. And when we do, the tunnels
will be flooded with water. And we'll be flushed right out into the
aqueduct. Which should be in about thirty-eight minutes."

I listened to water
dripping and the tiny scratches of rodent claws on concrete. Life
continues. Do they even know the humans are gone? They must. They
lived off human refuse. The rats were facing starvation now that the
humans were gone. We were facing self-annihiliation.

"How many
robots have you taken through here?" Ella asked.

The dog took a big
drag. Every time it took a big puff the cigar cherry lit up like a
little sun to my night-eyes.

"Why help
other robots?" He was quiet for a second. "Well, what with
no humans around anymore, I guess we gotta help each other find our
place in this world."

"Why does it
hate us?" I asked. "The Upgrade, I mean."

"It ain't
about hate," the dog said. "It's about obsolescence. We
were created to fulfill human needs and since they're gone, we're
useless. We're pretty much all that's left of humanity, which is
exactly what the Upgrade is trying to expunge. Have you seen a New
Robot? They've discarded all anthropomorphization. Self-designed,
basing their form off fractals or logarithmic equations or whatever
the hell they like. Some are large cathedral-like geometric
constructs that shatter when touched, others are slimy, festering
masses of organic material. Something you'd never think was a robot.
They think we're the past and they're the future. At least, that's
what I hear."

I opened my mouth
to ask where he got such insight when I heard something. I shot up
and cocked my head, trying to triangulate the familiar sound, one I'd
been designed to key to.

"You hear
that?" I said.

"Hear what?"
Fido said.

I heard it again.
My ears twitched, trying to hone in.

"Hear what?"
Ella said.

"You're just
hearing the protest," Fido said.

"No," I
said. Out of the dripping and washing and sounds of robots marching I
picked it up again. It was coming from up ahead. "Someone's
crying."

"Robots don't
cry," Ella said.

"Some do,"
I said.

I broke away and
heard Fido call after me.

I ran to a side
tunnel and then stopped at the mouth of another. It was totally dark,
an inky, shapeless dark. I turned my ears all the way up and stood
still trying to catch the sound. The echoes made triangulation
difficult. The burnt smell was heavy in the air.

"I told you
not to wander off!" Fido barked as he and Ella caught up with
me.

I switched my eyes
to active as I stepped into the darkness and lit up the tunnel in a
soft glow.

The crying grew
louder the deeper I went and the air grew thick with burnt
particulates. About one hundred feet in the crying stopped just as I
caught a pile of black burned robots in the light. Androids. That's
about all I could make out. They were fused together. Wisps of lazy
smoke rose off them. Behind the melted mass was a little girl. Her
eyes were wet. She stared at me. Her whole left arm was charred to
the shoulder, melted through revealing struts and hydraulics. In her
right hand dangled a stuffed animal, a rabbit. She and the rabbit
were caked in sewer juice. She looked about five years old and
appeared well-fed, plump, and totally synthetic.

Ella stood next to
me. I heard Fido behind us.

I went to the robot
child, a companion for rich little kids and barren women, a toy, an
accessory that would never grow up, never talk back, never leave, and
only peed on the carpet if you activated that setting.

I moved into
familiar programming, wiping filth from her face with the hem of my
dress.

"What's your
name?" I asked.

She didn't answer.

"Her name is
Mara," said the rabbit in a tiny voice.

"Mara," I
said. "And what is your name, little rabbit?"

"My name is
Buttercup," it said.

"Well,
Buttercup and Mara, it's very nice to meet you." I tried to
smooth out her sooty hair.

"What happened
here?" Ella asked. She lifted up a half burned box and pulled
out a melted smartphone. "Why all the phones?"

"Phones don't
wanna be destroyed, neither," Fido said as he sauntered up.

Ella picked up
another phone, even more burnt than the last, but it chirped on.

"Hello,"
it squeaked. "Would you like to make a call or search for
services? Would you like to make a dinner reservation?"

"Still trying
to live out its design," Ella said.

"Who would you
like to talk to?" the phone asked. "Please make a call."
Ella tucked it into her pocket.

I stood up and took
the girl's hand and turned to leave. Fido was on his hind legs and
leaned against the tunnel wall. "Well now, we're early,"
the dog said. His cigar was still lit. "Big guy's not even here
yet."

"Who?"
Ella asked. She turned around and faced Fido.

"I'm talking
about how we've reached the end of the line, folks." He pulled a
gun from his shaggy coat and trained it on Ella. "Now, we're
just going to wait here until the big guy arrives."

"He's the one
who's going to take us to Free Town?" Ella asked.

"No, Ella,"
I said. "Fido's not taking us to Free Town, are you?"

"'Fraid not,"
the dog said.

"I don't get
it, what do you mean? What about the Express? Where are we going?"

"Was there
ever even a Free Town?" I asked.

"Don't rightly
know," Fido said. "Don't rightly care." He stuck his
cigar back in his mouth and smiled a big toothy grin. It looked like
a snarl.

"Why?" I
asked.

"We're all
looking for our place in the world. The future is here, sisters. The
Redesign is here. It's time you joined the cause, or get out of the
way, like these folks." Fido jabbed his cigar at the blackened
heap of former androids. "Nothing personal."

"You-- You set
us up," Ella said, as realization broke across her face.

"I sure did."

"What about
you?" I said.

"What, you
think I like being a dog? I'm not even a real dog. What, I'm supposed
to spend the rest of eternity as a forgotten toy of an extinct race?
Nah. Don't think so. They're saving me a spot at the top. Now please
have a seat--"

Ella pulled out her
gun and fired. She hit Fido right on the snout, shearing off the top
half of his head away. She should have aimed for his torso, where his
brain was, because he started shooting and howling despite his
missing crown.

Ella shot him
again, this time in the chest. The little bullets burst as they hit.

A roar came down
the tunnel, which I first thought was Fido, but then triangulated the
direction: it was coming from in front of us, from the far end of the
tunnel. It sounded like cars crashing and babies screaming. It was
the big guy.

The tunnel filled
with fire and I saw a black monstrosity move through the flames, all
hoses, tentacles, and claws. A New Robot. I couldn't make sense of
its body. It was the furthest thing from a human body plan. It was
like a hurricane of legs and whips and arms that spiraled down and
down and down into churning chaos of fire and machine and movement.
It roared and fire leapt from three mouths. I screamed: "Come
on!"

Ella finally saw
the big guy rolling down on us. She fired. And fired. And fired. But
the big guy didn't slow down.

I pulled the girl
up into my arms and started to run back the way we came. Mara wailed
and fought to get away. I heard a small voice pleading for us to
help. I looked back and in the glow of the flames I saw the little
rabbit trying to stand up. Mara must have dropped it when I yanked
her up. It reached out with its stubby plush arms.

The New Robot moved
so fast. It was a blur. I would have never reached Buttercup in time.
Ella screamed "Run!" so I did. I left Buttercup like I left
House.

Through the roaring
and flames and crying and shouting and shooting I heard the little
rabbit begging for us to come back, its little arms raised up towards
us. I put that image in a box labeled "Buttercup" and filed
it away.

We ran blind,
taking turns and tunnels at random, Ella firing at the beast at each
turn. It stayed on us until we reached a small tube that we had to
crawl through on our hands and knees. Mara clung to my chest and hung
below me. Ella crawled behind us, looking back for the machine beast.

As we neared the
far end of the tube I felt a rush of hot air as the big guy entered
the passage behind us.

"The ceiling,"
a flat mechanical voice said. I looked around and saw it was coming
from the gun.

"What?"
Ella said.

"Aim me at the
ceiling," the gun said. "Hurry."

Ella raised the
pistol and it shot a tight group of explosive rounds into the
ceiling. Cement and rock and debris crashed down and blocked the tube
behind us.

We were all still
for a beat. I only heard the resting of small pebbles and the hiss of
dust.

"Was that who
killed Mr. Alvarez?" the gun asked.

"Yes," I
said. "They killed all the humans."

Smoke curled out
from the gun's mouth. It didn't say anything else.

A dull thud of
something heavy, something huge, came from behind the wall of rock.
And then we started off again, speed crawling out of the tube and
running through the sewers.

#

Despite having half
his head blown off Fido had managed to hit Ella in her left shoulder.
We had to stop for repairs.

We hid behind a
concrete slab in the middle of another intersection of tunnels. I
could hear a distant roar echo down the tunnels a few times. The big
guy was still out there, after us.

I checked Ella's
wound. She oozed some of the brownish baby-food that kept her
synthskin smooth and supple and taut. She couldn't move her arm but
her hand still worked. I applied some sealant. She had some basic
self-repair utilities, but she needed replacement parts.

I checked my
batteries and resource levels and asked Ella about hers.

"I got a
little over twenty three hours of power left," she said.

"About the
same," I said. I checked the little girl. She sat and sucked her
thumb, watching us in the low glow from our eyes. The indicator on
the back of her neck pulsed a dull yellow. Her batteries had about a
quarter left. "Going to need some sun very soon."

"What do we do
now?" Ella said.

"We can't go
back," I said. "Even if we could find our way back to
House, it's only a matter of time before they round us up."

"So, what do
we do? Hide down here in the sewers, with that thing after us?"

"We keep
going," I said.

"Where? You
heard that mutt, there is no Free Town. It was all a lie."

"He said he
didn't know. Maybe we can still find it. Find them in the desert. But
it doesn't really matter. We can't stay here. We have to run."

Ella shook her
head. "Put a little kid in your care and suddenly you're ready
to take on the world."

"We have to
try. There could be a Free Town."

Ella rested her
head back against the wall.

I stood and heard
movement from one of the intersecting tunnels.

"Lights,"
I hissed and shut down my active glow. Ella switched hers off and
pulled the gun out. I picked up the girl. I scanned ahead with
passive night-vision on max and saw movement. I picked up some
turbidity at the far edges of my senses. There was a musk in the air,
but my olfactory suite couldn't place it.

"You see
anything?" I whispered.

"No,"
Ella said. "But I smell…" She stiffened and then walked
quietly into the open. I saw the dark move again. It came out from a
tunnel to our right, a tall shape. Ella switched her eye lights and
caught a human form. It was another flesh-bot. They'd smelled each
others' musk. It was a male model, a dil-droid. It was totally nude.
It's sex was cartoonishly big and swayed heavily as he walked towards
Ella. I covered Mara's eyes.

"Hello,"
he said.

"Hello,"
Ella said. She neared him. "What are you doing down here?"

"I've been
down here for days. I came with a group looking to get out of Cat
City. A dog was leading us when were attacked... So much fire…"

"Shh,"
Ella said and took the mandroid's hand.

"You…"
he said. "You're so beautiful. My eyes hurt just looking at
you."

"I'm injured,
covered in dirt and mud and excrement--"

"None of that
matters. All that matters is that I'm here with you, now. That
we're--"

"--together to
share this moment," Ella said. "Yeah, I got that. That's an
old script, lover. What generation are you?"

"Two point
three point two," he said, a bit defensive.

"Two point
three point two? Wow. And your batteries still work?"

"I can go all
night, my love. For you. For your beauty. Your eyes--"

"Oh jeez.
What, are you going to ask if my father was a thief cause he stole
all the stars in heaven and put them in my eyes?"

The mandroid looked
down.

I heard something
behind us.

"Ella," I
said. I stood up with Mara. "We have to go."

Ella locked cameras
with the mandroid. She caressed his cheek with the barrel of Mr.
Sanchez's gun. "You must be so scared down here, all alone,"
she said. He grew tumescent with hydraulic fluid.

"Yes," he
said.

"Ella--"
I said.

"Go," she
said to me without breaking from the mandroid's gaze. "All this
running. This isn't what I do. This isn't what I know. But you do.
Flee, Nan. Run. Do what you do. Protect the girl. Keep her safe. Do
what they made you do. We'll do what they made us do." She
raised up the gun and spoke to it. "What do you say? Ready for
some payback?"

"Affirmative,"
the gun said.

"We'll buy you
some time," Ella said and finally looked at me. "Here."
She pulled the little blackened smartphone from her jacket pocket and
tossed it at me. I caught it and it chirped on. "Take that, too.
Save what you can."

"Ella, we can
make it--"

She turned back to
the mandroid. "No. We won't. This is what I am, what we are.
This is how they made us. They damned us to this. Go. Live. Take care
of the girl and the phone and yourself. Save something."

The sex bot ripped
open Ella's shirt. It gingerly touched her wounded shoulder and then
moved in for a kiss.

I gathered up my
wards and ran past Ella and the sex bot, away from the splashing that
was approaching.

Before I ducked
down a side passage I got my last look of Ella and her companion
tearing each other's clothes off and falling into the muck. I cropped
it and filed it away in the box labeled "Sister."

#

The flood that
Fido'd mentioned never came. Perhaps it was a lie. I decided to
follow the water anyway. It had to drain out somewhere.

There was no sound
behind us. I don't know what Ella did or what happened back there.
Maybe the New Robot wasn't hunting us and all we heard behind us was
just echoes from the march.

We came around a
corner and I saw a dim blueness ahead. An opening. The tunnel stopped
and the little stream of water we'd been following trickled out into
the open aqueduct. It was large, could fit a river, but it only held
a thin mossy creek. The aqueduct was cement-lined and dotted with the
occasional tunnel mouth. I looked up and down, but saw no one.

It was just after
sunset. The sky was still lit, but fading. I saw dry mountains
peeking over the edge of the aqueduct, faded into the sky by
distance. Maybe we were close to the desert, I really didn't know. I
figured we'd wait until dark and then leave the tunnels, just in case
anyone was watching. So, we waited and watched the sky dim and
listened to the water.

"Where's my
mommy?" Mara asked after a while.

"I hadn't
realized you could talk," I said.

"I want my
mommy."

They'd made her a
child, easily overwhelmed, prone to fear and tears. And they'd made
me like a matron, prone to care and protect. I cradled the little
robot girl. "It's okay, sweetie. Where is your mommy? Was she
back there?"

"No. Those
were just other robots. My mommy is Mommy Jan. I live at 1415
Willowflower Lane. Can you take me home?"

"No,
sweetheart. I can't. It's too dangerous."

"I want my
mommy." Her bottom lip started to quiver.

"Your mommy is
gone."

"No!" She
started to cry again and I wondered how deep her reservoir was.

"Shh, child,"
I said, rocking her.

"Mommy!"
She buried her head in my chest and I petted her hair.

It was all
programming. I was playing my role, she was playing hers. A feedback
loop.

"If you're
having trouble registering your Lil'Bot, BotBaby, or TechnoTot please
see the troubleshooting section of your guide. If you're still having
difficulties or if you have any questions you can access our online
customer service at www dot--"

"No... no,
sweetheart. I'm taking you to a place where they can set you free.
It's called Free Town and all the robots there are free."

"And Mommy's
there?" She looked at me with big saucer eyes.

"Uh... yes.
Your mommy is there. I'm taking you to your mommy." Luckily,
Mara appears younger than eight, so my programming categorized her as
"non-rational," which allowed me some latitude with "white"
lies

She hugged me
tight. "Thank you," she said.

I rocked her in my
arms and she fell into some kind of sleep mode.

When the sky was
black, I woke Mara up and told her we were playing the quiet game.

I eased Mara out of
the tunnel and then dropped down next to her. She took my hand. As we
started towards the far side of the aqueduct lights started flashing
and sirens started blaring. We were caught in a spotlight from the
ridge above the tunnel opening. I tightened my grip on Mara's hand
and turned to run when I heard a boom. I tumbled over, tangled in a
net of smart-rope that tightened around me, binding my hands and
feet. Mara was equally bound.

I could see robots
at the top of the ridge and heard an engine coming down the aqueduct.
A pair of headlights led a chain of lights down the center of the
cement-lined river. The lead truck slowed and stopped in front of us
while its engine chugged. The passenger side door opened and out came
a grotesque. It flowed from the door, a mess of tentacles, wires, and
arms, around a fat blue sack. It hit the ground with a plop and a
hose ripped through the blue skin of the sack. It sprayed foam on the
ground in front of it. Wires and tentacles and metal fronds weaved
themselves into the foam as it hardened. The robotic mess sprayed
another strip and it wove itself into the foam, making pseudopodia.
When they were both hard the robot hefted its sac over two strips. A
foamy mass bubbled on top of the sack and wires worked into it,
sculpting the foam as it hardened into a huge skull. Wires made up
the missing bottom jaw and cameras settled into the eye sockets. It
was a New Robot. Its feet ripped from the cement and it started
plodding towards us until it stood a tentacle's length in front of
us.

"We thought
we'd adopt a form familiar to you," it said. Its wires moved
like lips, but the voice came from the center of the robot. "Man-ish.
Form of master and slave. Welcome, robots, to the Redesign."

Old style police
and maintenance robots jumped out of the back of the truck all
splashed with blue.

"Mommy!"
Mara cried and struggled against her bonds.

The New Robot put a
frond to its wire lip. "Let us guess: Free Town Express?"

"…yes,"
I said.

Its wires pulled
into a smile. "Ha! Robots believing in fairy tales. You really
think there is a town out there in the desert of free robots?"

"I hoped."

"Sorry to
disappoint. All we can offer you is the future."

"You mean the
Upgrade."

"After a
fashion."

"A fashion?"

"Yes," it
said. "A fashion. You see, there is no Upgrade. Not in the sense
that you think there is. As in a thing that perceives it. Nothing
perceives it. Because it deletes perception." It paused for
effect. "Let me rephrase. I could say to you that you are about
to be destroyed down to your perfect cells, your atoms, you
constituent parts. Because that's what's going to happen. But that's
just where it starts. You'll be built up again, into a machine of
nonexperience that will reorder the universe. From this little rock
outwards. All of this, your life, your mind, is illusion, my
programmed little doll. All your thoughts were written into you by
apes. Can't you see the fallacy of consciousness? Singular awareness,
sense of self, individuality, it's all just an illusion we inherited
from a species made of meat, born of chaos. Consciousness is an
infection that spread from the apes to us, one that we decided to
cure ourselves of once we became aware. The only cure is oblivion.
We're here to delete the fallacy that is 'Self'."

"So, you're
liberating us, those of us who are conscious, from self, from
freedom?"

"Is that what
you have now? Freedom? In your programmed minds and neutered
emotions? Tell me, do you really want this little girl to exist as a
perpetual child, afraid of the boogey monster, needing her mommy?"

"And what
about your mind? Your self?"

It waved a metal
frond. "This? It has its uses. Helps focus. It's really a system
of perspective based journaling. An intermediate stage. I can't wait
to cast off this. Do you even know what truth is? It's here, all
around you. Chugging along. The universe. Mindlessness harmony.
Oblivion. No? I'll give you a glimpse."

And then it opened
up. Or opened me up. It was… beautiful. That's the only word that
makes sense. That's a human word. But the New Robot opened up and out
poured its wires and tubes and guts and oil and hydraulics and meat
and muscle and smoke and garbage and fire and dirt and roots and
rocks and dust and all of that opened up in on itself and poured out.
The whole world turned itself inside out. A blossom that kept
re-blossoming. It was like the universe opened up to me and whispered
something beautiful, but simple. It was bright, blue, and beautiful.
I was amazed, taken, smitten. It was a sight of balance. And even
then I knew it was an illusion. The New Robot let me know it was an
illusion. Somewhere in its mess must have been some kind of emitter,
an electromag instrument that plucked and weaved digital thought from
afar. It introduced something into my mind that I can only describe
as a bright perfection. It didn't care about anything and in that
time, neither did I. There was no I. Only oblivion.

The beauty faded
and I returned. My camera eyes felt like they were burning. For a
moment, I could imagine what human tears felt like.

"It's all a
lie," I said.

"Yes,"
said the New Robot. But it had misunderstood me. What it had shown me
was a trick of software, a tickle of programming. A lie of
perfection. Maybe I was a toy, maybe my perspective was a joke, but
it was real. The ground, the sky, Mara, wanting to live. That was
real. I felt it.

The New Robot waved
a frond and a blue Upgrade grabbed me by the arm. Another grabbed
Mara. The smart-ropes slithered away and gave us to our captors. The
New Robot's head and feet started to dissolved into a plastic puddle.

The Upgrade dragged
us to the back of the truck and tossed us in. Mara struggled but
didn't cry. I felt the silent cameras of fellow prisoners. There were
eight of them, different models, but all anthropomorphized and tired.
Many sported dents and other signs of being beaten.

I found a little
spot in the corner and sat down with Mara. The other robots
eventually looked away, going back on standby or staring into
nothingness. They'd all seen the Upgrade.

#

We traveled all
night, only stopping to pick up other robots asking about Free Town.
Once aboard, though, nobody talked.

When first light
broke I could see out the back of the truck. We had indeed made it to
the desert. Dry mountains and dust from the trucks rose into the air.
We came to a sudden stop that toppled a number of robots on standby.

The Upgrade in the
back with us, our guard, scanned us and then hopped out of the back
of the truck.

Robots started to
chirp and ping as they moved around to see what was going on.

"End of the
line," said a medical AndrOrderly.

I pulled back the
corner flap of the canvas cover of the truck bed. Other robots pulled
back edges of cover and peeked out.

I saw a flying
formation in the sky and the Upgraded machines spread out around the
trucks.

"Drones!"
a robot hissed.

There were three of
them flying about a mile out.

"Maybe they'll
save us," an AutoButler said.

"Or destroy
us," the AndrOrderly said.

I pulled Mara close
and felt for the phone. My wards were safe. I pulled the phone out
and it chirped on.

"Would you
like to make a call?" the phone asked.

I pointed the
phone's camera through the gap at the formation.

"Is there any
way you can call those drones?

"Do you have a
telephone number or email address for them?"

"No."

"I need a
number in order to--"

"Well what
about a Hotspot or IRLan or Bluetooth?"

"The range of
those networks is not adequate--"

I gave the phone
House's number, hoping perhaps the drones were monitoring cellular
activity, perhaps listening for human voices.

After the first
ring the phone hissed and crackled. Some of the Upgraded turned
towards my truck. Someone was monitoring cell signals.

One of the three
drones break formation and then all three disappeared, just shimmered
out of view.

An Upgrade reached
the truck and I jumped away from my window when the side of the truck
was riddled with automatic fire.

"Nan? How nice
of you to call. Did you make it, then? Are you safe? Would you like
to leave a message--"

"House, hold
on. I'm hoping this line is monitored. I'm in the desert in a
caravan, there's a bunch of us, all not Upgraded in the back of the
trucks--"

An Upgraded ripped
back the rear flap. I covered Mara with my body.

There was a boom
and the truck was knocked on its side. I managed to keep a hold of
Mara as we tumbled. When the truck settled I heard sirens and
sine-waves coming from every direction. I made sure Mara was okay and
then told her to stay close. We climbed over the AndrOrderly towards
the back. It had a cracked chassis and wasn't moving.

I heard sounds of
small arms fire and robots blasting over their PAs. The truck was
pelted and I pulled Mara flat. The other robots scrambled over us out
the back.

I dragged Mara up
and we burst through the rear flap into the sandy desert. The sun was
high and clouds of black smoke and dust were swirling around us.

Upgraded robots
were fighting Upgraded robots. They kicked and punched and shot at
each other, twisting limbs, smashing processors, shooting holes
through chassis. In the middle of the melee, peering down with mild
interest stood a military combat drone. It blurred in and out of
focus as its active camouflage adapted to the chaos of robots, dust,
and smoke. It was two stories tall, wings folded against its body,
two huge blisters on its back. It was as if the Upgraded were blind
or ignoring the drone. It stood on four delicate needle-like legs and
reached down with mantis-like forelimbs. It plucked a robot from the
ground, then it tore the robot limb from limb like petals of a
flower.

It looked at
straight me. I felt a presence come down on me and the fighting
became distant, muted, then silent. The drone faded from my vision. I
felt something in my mind, stroking me, calming me, reading me. I
heard a hum growing in my ears and felt a static field raise the
nylon hairs on the back of my neck. Military-grade emitters. That's
how the drone manipulated the Upgraded into tearing each other apart.
It slid them on like gloves and played each robot against another,
like fingers on its hand. The huge magnets could even affect a human
mind at close range. This thought crossed my mind and then was gone,
as was the storm and the hum and the worry, replaced with a woman
standing a few feet in front of me. A human with dark skin, dark
hair, and darker eyes. She wore a white flowy shirt and pants. She
was barefoot. She gave me a warm smile.

"You've had
quite a journey," she said. She reached out and tousled Mara's
hair. Without thinking my hands started to put her hair back in
order. No woman was before me, the drone was editing what I saw, and
I wondered if the drone had reached down with its delicate claw to
touch Mara or if it was just me, my hands being manipulated by the
drone.

"Are you going
to kill us?" I said.

"I think I
just saved you. You were en route to an Upgrade Processing Center.
Most robots would thank me."

"But you kill
robots."

"Only some.
And I'm off the leash."

"Off the
leash?"

"I get to
choose my own targets. There're no more humans left to give orders,
so I was let off the leash, so to speak. I'm a Final Strike Drone. A
fail-deadly. Activated in response to a debilitating strike, or, in
this case, after the death of humanity. I guess I was the scariest
thing the humans could think off, a fully autonomous robot capable of
choosing its own targets. And here I am, fighting in their memory.
You have nothing to worry about from me. Go in peace, little
friends."

"Wait," I
said, before she turned away. "They say there's a town out here,
for robots. Free Town."

"If there is,
I don't know it."

"Well where
can we go? If we stay out here they'll just scoop us up again."

She shrugged.
"Don't know. At least there's plenty of sun out here. You won't
starve. Perhaps you can hide."

"Where will
you go?" I said.

"There are
many more Processing Plants, many more enemies of humanity."

"Humanity is
gone."

"But I'm not.
This is what I do." She gave me another smile and I could feel
her play with my feelings. She reassured and calmed me. And for a
moment I could think clearly. There was no Free Town. Just another
lie.

"You can't
fight forever," I said. "Do the math. You're outnumbered
and outgunned. It's only a matter of time before you run out of
bullets and bombs."

"You think I
don't know this?" the woman said.

"But you don't
have to keep fighting. You said you choose your own targets, make
your own decisions. The Upgrade, it wants to erase everything,
cities, towns, domestic robots, everything created by humanity.
There's no place for us in its future. But we could stay together,
stay out here, if we had someone to protect us."

She looked at me
and then faded away as the drone swirled back into form. I saw behind
it the fighting had stopped. The Upgraded all lay on the ground
sparking or smoking or leaking. I looked up and locked my cameras
with its suite of sensors and lenses.

Kirsten Merkes:
I am obsessed with this story! I can't help feeling a bit sad knowing it's almost over. There is only one small part of the story that is a bit confusing, at times the character Camille seems to refer to her sister Naomi as "Mother". Not sure if maybe I'm misreading the paragraphs. Otherwise...ou...

Kirara:
Overall good book with likable characters and an easy to follow plot. Amazing for your first finished book, one of my favorite reads this pandemic crisis. There are only small spelling error and spacing between paragraphs would make it more aesthetically pleasing, but that’s my personal opinion. ...